


Zootopia: The Dark Time Vol.1

by Bodacious_Bill



Series: Zootopia: The Dark Time [1]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodacious_Bill/pseuds/Bodacious_Bill
Summary: Half a year has passed after the case of the night howlers. But that was not the only danger creeping in the dark corners of Zootopia...





	1. Chapter 1

Thousands and thousands years ago two delegations had come to the non-aggression pact due to which all the predators and prey had to behave peacefully toward each other and treat each other as rivals. Since that moment predators started to overcome their natural instincts of hunting and prey started fighting their inborn fear of the predators on the lands that were later called Animalia, the land of freedom and equality. The inhabitants of this country evolved together and grew to exist without any aggression, bit by bit breaking their traditions. After a time the most active founders of the country have concentrated in the middle of Animalia and created the city called Zootopia, the mammals with firm ideological principles have built the Utopian society there while in the other places the animals changed less radical.

But centuries passed and things have changed. The ideological leaders have turned into history for a long while ago, and lots of country-siders immigrated into Zootopia attracted with the stories about peace and friendship in there. But they had absolutely no idea that to enter this heaven they had to have the special moral basis which could have been formed only in the townsmammals, so instead of getting into the Utopia these immigrants have brought their out-of-date habits in this society and destroyed the frail equilibrium there. Since the first wave of immigration till the present days there were more waves so today Zootopia was no better than any other place in Animalia. But the beautiful stories were still wandering around the countryside giving the dreams to the ill-informed countrysiders.

***

It was just a hot sunny day in the Central district of Zootopia. It was hot outside, but in the Zootopia Police Department it was as comfortable as it always was because of the good ventilation system. Everyone was doing their own staff, including Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, who’s duty was to sit at the reception and consult visitors in between consuming his endless donuts. Everything went as always and exactly as it was meant to go, and nobody expected anything strange or special today.

Also as always, Officer Judy Hopps, who was a first (end at the moment the only one) bunny police officer and Officer Nick Wilde, who was a fox and who Judy worked and lived with for almost six months already, arrived to the ZPD simultaneously, greeted Clawhauser and went straight to the planning session. Despite of it was fifteen minutes before the beginning of this routine procedure, the room was already full of animals of any imaginable kinds – elephants, bears, wolves and tigers were just a small part of the list of species, who Judy and Nick have noticed. The probable reason of this punctuality was the severity of their first-hand boss.

At exactly 7:00 am the lieutenant Hipp (who was a hippo) shouted:   
"Atten-tion!" (the command that nobody executed as always) and Chief Bogo himself entered the room. He was a very big and overbearing buffalo, so his small glasses at the end of his nose looked at least like puppet stuff.   
"Shut it!" he said and silence fell in the room filled with animals. "We have a pretty serene day, no big crimes have been committed, so there will be only patrol assignments today. Officers Delgato, Fragmire, you take the Rainforest district. Officers Grizzoli, Rhinowitz – Tundratown. Officers McHorn, Wolfard take Sahara Square and Little Rodentia. Officers Hopps and Wilde – parking duty".   
"Sir, you are joking like this almost every planning session – and that’s not funny for… let me count… 6 months already!" noticed Judy.   
"Oh, shut up, he is our superior, don’t upset him!" interrupted the fox.   
"No, it’s okay, she’s right," answered Chief Bogo without a trace of insult in his voice, "It’s the end of the month, you know what you have to do". And they really did.

Last weekday of the month was less loved by Judy and Nick of all days, because it was the day that they had to spend sitting in their office, doing loads of useless paperwork about crimes they investigated this month. As they were jokingly known as “The most effective ZPD team”, they mostly had to fill the blanks with all the same stories how they spent the days in their office doing nothing, which was very boringly, so Nick and Judy always left this paperwork till the last day, and by the end of the month they had to fill endless papers with the mostly same stories, so they needed the whole day to do it. Not that they tried to avoid their duty, to the contrary, they always took the case if it appeared, but their job on the Violent Crimes section was almost always very serene and quiet due to the good situation – not so many violent crimes were being committed in Zootopia which was a good sign. To honor of officers Hopps and Wilde, one hundred percent of cases that got in their paws were solved successfully.

Nick was in bad mood and muttered all the way to their office.   
"Why don’t we hire a secretory to do this routine staff for us?" he asked.  
"Probably, because Bogo isn’t going to pay salary to one more person in this room, and we cannot afford to do it ourselves, can we?" Judy’s voice sounded a bit sad, "We have to live in a small rental apartment in the undertown, honey, thank God the ZPD is paying for our transporting costs, or we’d be going by feet home every day".   
"Oh yea, “The most effective team”, the salary is even less then the janitor has!" continued muttering Nick, "I should never have stopped selling those pawpsicles, we’d be at least living like normal animals".  
Judy already got used to this, so she left the fox with his indignant monologue, got to her desk and started filling materials to the forms. And as always after fifteen minutes of answerless speech Nick calmed down and started doing his reports to.   
"Oh, he’ll always remain that scallywag I met once as I was a meter maid" thought Hopps with a smile. She didn’t expect what was going to happen today. And nobody did, because such sings have never happened in Zootopia before.


	2. Chapter 2

At approximately 1:30pm the whole building of the ZPD was filled with the shouting voice of Chief Bogo from the intercom.   
"Attention! I need all available officers in the planning room NOW! And yes, it concerns the detectives too!" Nick and Judy ran there as fast as they could, because they could feel that something really bad happened – Chief Bogo never spoke through the intercom himself before.

When they entered the room, where a dozen officers where already, Chief looked really worried.   
"Everybody here?" he asked and continued without waiting for answer, "We have an emergency of the biggest level ever! I’ve just got report from officer Grizzoli – he told me that officer Rhinowitz was down. Someone started an armed attack on them, and surrounded them. After he told he needed reinforcements his radio went offline. I want every single one of you to arm yourself and head for officers in Tundratown, now!"

All the officers, including Hopps and Wilde dashed to the armory, where they got their bulletproof vests and handguns, then to their cars and drove as fast as they could with their sirens to the crime scene. They arrived simultaneously with ambulance to find officer Rhinowitz, who was badly shot and shocked officer Grizzoli near him.   
"Th- they surrounded us, sh- shot at us and got Rhinowitz…" he told Judy, "I- I never expected something like this in Zootopia, I didn’t know what to do…" A teardrop rolled down his big face.   
"It’s okay, Rhinowitz’ll be alright. But what can you tell us about those bastards who attacked you?" asked Nick, who suddenly appeared behind Judy.   
"Errm… They wore masks so it will be im- impossible to recognize ‘em, but one thing I can tell for sure – they all were predators, I believe… I mean, I could have been mistaken, of course, but I think, I saw a couple of wolves and a bear…" After those words Grizzoli was also taken by the ambulance, but Nick and Judy already had lots of information to discuss. 

"What do you think, Carrots, why were there only predators? Is it possible that after we stopped Bellwether someone has his own plans to try and set up predators?" asked the fox while they were returning to their car, but Judy didn’t answer. Her attention was locked on a strange person who was standing aloof near the corner of the building with his head covered with black hood. Judy couldn’t see his face, but the form of the head under the hood could have probably specified that strange person as some kind of fox.   
"Hey, bunny, are you listening or what?" Nick broke into her consciousness. Then he caught her sight and look in the same direction, but nobody was there anymore. Hopps decided her brain started imagining things after a long paperwork earlier today, and told Nick nothing.

In the ZPD everybody was talking about the incident. A couple of journalists were trying to slip past Clawhauser, but he stood on their way like a concrete wall, so they failed. But secrets always get known by everyone really quick, and information about the attack spread through the city, attracting more and more journalists, who actually flooded the ZPD hall so nobody could leave the building or enter it. Chief Bogo locked himself in his office; all the other officers were playing a role of the living fence, because nobody wanted to see ZPD building swarming with journalists, who will be, no doubt, interrupting officers’ work.

At the same time the emergency procedures have been initiated in Zootopia. The underground was closed, and every citizen, who was trying to move between the districts had to show their IDs to be allowed to bypass.

Nick Wilde had even the worse day that he had expected. He with Judy had a case to investigate, but he wasn’t allowed to because Chief Bogo still wanted those reports on his desk by the end of the day. Still, he was pretty sure that the others won’t be able to crack it before he gets free, because they really had no suspects or leads to follow. But much worse was the fact that some journalist somehow got into the building and bumped him while he had his coffee so that all the coffee got exactly to his brand new shirt, and he had no other uniform at the office, so he had to hang around the whole day with a sticky stain on him.

On the other side, Judy Hopps haven’t even noticed how angry her partner was, trying to fill in all the papers as fast as she could. As result, she ended her reports much earlier than Nick, who muttered quietly after writing every word. To speed the process up, she helped him with some papers that didn’t need Nick’s personal opinion. Anyway, they ended only by the night, and when they left their office, they realized that all the public transports were now unavailable, so they had no alternatives but to go home by foot. 

When they delved into the small streets, none of them noticed the dark figure which separated from the dark wall.


	3. Chapter 3

The dark figure followed Nick and Judy step by step. Of course a highly-trained professional like Nick should have noticed the pursuit, but he didn’t. Was it a hard day on work, what dispelled his consciousness, or was he just too interested with his dialogue with Judy, but none of this lovely pair felt presence of someone who really wanted to know their every move. Still, when the partners stopped to decide, which street to choose – long but safe or quick but really dark and narrow, Nick heard a suspicious sound from behind him, but before he turned around their follower disappeared in the darkness so that even Wilde, who had an exceptional vision (because he was a fox) couldn’t see him. The fatigue did what it had to, and the pair chose the fastest way hoping that their police badges will scare anyone who might have had an idea to attack them, even so in the light of what happened earlier this day they couldn’t expect to be safe. Anyway, they could be lucky and could get home without any accidents, if only the dark figure hasn’t blocked their only way, when they were really close.

"Stay back!" said Nick to Judy, standing in front of her, "We are police officers."  
"So what? I don’t mean any harm to any of you" said the figure with the quiet hoarse voice, getting his cloak with hood off. In front of the brave police officers stood a fox, who was dressed, how Judy thought, in a very aristocratic way – he had the grey Comstock vest with the gold watch chain under the darker grey frock coat. It was definitely a fox, but his fur was not red, like Nick’s or some other foxes they knew, but in grey and black colors. Even more attention dragged the scar that crossed fox’s face from above his left eye to the bottom of the left cheek. Because of all this details this fox looked very unusual and mysterious, especially in the darkness of night. 

"He’s a silver fox" explained Nick in a whisper, answering a question in Judy’s eyes and turned to the stranger:  
"Okay then, who are you and what is it what you want?" asked he aloud.  
"Who I am is not important. If you wish, you can call me Domino. And all want is to save your life, Nicholas."  
"Whoa, is somebody scary and dangerous waiting for us at home?" Nick tried to say it like it was a joke (he took this silver fox as a madmammal), but he failed, because the scathing look, that stranger gave him told that he was absolutely serious about what he said.  
"No" he answered with the same quiet and soft voice, "This is much bigger. This is the danger not exactly for you, but for the all predators of Zootopia. It’s the plot, which shares its goals with former mayor Bellwether. You should leave the city, while you can, Wilde, or it will be too late."  
"Oi, but why should he leave? Why don’t we just investigate this like we investigated night howlers?" – interrupted Judy.   
"Well, you are speaking like the real detective. But thing is, Bellwether was just one mad sheep who suddenly gained power, and this is well organized conspiracy, which existed years before she took too much attention to the tolerance with her failure and the plot had to hide for some time, and now they will execute their plans…"  
"Wait!" Hopps wasn’t the example how to behave today, "But how can you know so much about this conspiracy, if you say it’s against the predators, one of who you yourself are?"  
"Don’t jump to conclusions, bunny, of course you have a bunch of reasons to suspect me, I can’t help it. Still, I can say that some time ago they needed some young thugs who had nothing to lose, and I needed a job, and they noticed me. Speaking of bunnies, by the way. When their plan will get its success, sure it will, and they will find out that prey-officer Judy Hopps used to hang around with the fox, she will suffer even more than any of the preds. That is why, if I was you, Judy, I would run away with Nick."  
"Okay then, and what will your mysterious they do when they get the power?" Nick was ready to explode because of all the questions he had.  
"They will just lock the city down and start oppressing the predators who will be still here, probably lock them in some kind of reservations – this is the part of conspiracy I’m unable to tell much about. Still, it will be very hard to survive, I can guarantee that. And soon after they will clean up all the predators outside the conspiracy, they will crush us, the inner predators. By the way, they’re probably going to execute their plan tomorrow, so if I was you, I’d be thinking faster"  
"Oh, so soon? If we’ll decide to escape, how will we do it then?" – Judy tried to think through all the possibilities, because Domino didn’t seem to be joking or crazy.  
"Well, I have an escape plan for you. I call it the “Ark” project. Tomorrow at 8:00am the column of trucks will leave the city, in those trucks you and the others I was able to save will get out of Zootopia. The trip will start from the Neil Street in Sahara Square. Don’t be late. And there is just one thing I want you to do in exchange: don’t tell anyone about our small dialogue, because when they will find out what I did, they’ll kill me. It’s okay, I’m ready for it, but the less I jeopardize my life, the later I die and the more innocent predators I can save."

Nick and Judy were listening carefully, they were shocked. None of them could believe a word said by this stranger, that in Zootopia, which wasn’t a perfect place itself, but seemed to be pretty predictable and safe for anyone, could appear such a cruel and dangerous conspiracy. But Domino had something in his voice, what made the fox and the bunny trust him, so they promised him to keep silent and think over his offer. The last thing they heard from him, before he disappeared in the night, was ‘If you want proof, turn on TV as soon as you get home’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My illustration to this chapter:  
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ipLTx1ES3TOWtFOXcxMFBBbmM


	4. Chapter 4

Hopps and Wilde arrived home in the nearest fifteen minutes after the strange fox warned them. To be honest, it was difficult to call this place home, despite of Judy’s endless tries to change it. From the outside it looked like the small barrack with some windows and a teensy little garden in front of it. But inside it was even more depressing: dirty windows let only a small quantum of light through even on daylight, in the evening the only source of light was an old little bulb in the middle of the ceiling. The only furniture in this place was an old double bed, small table in the corner and the ancient-looking redwood cupboard, which had one of the doors missing. Still, there was a TV, microwave and a fridge here, and all three of those were immediately used by Nick as he and Judy got in. First of all he cooked two cheap “Food-for-one” packages and then turned on TV to get exactly to “Zootopia Midnight News” TV program. What he saw there shocked him even more then the words of a stranger they met earlier today: instead of the news there was the first for the half of the year release of “ZMN: Breaking News”, and the headline of said “Are the predators going to oppress the prey? Let’s sort out yesterday’s events and estimate the risks of letting predators to society”.  
"Carrots…" said Nick quietly, "it seems like that fox today wasn’t lying…"  
"What makes you say things like that?" Judy’s voice from the small kitchen sounded surprised. After fifteen minutes long trip with Nick her belief in the Domino’s words disappeared and she assured herself that he was just mad.  
"Well, you’d better come here and look, maybe I’ve accidently forgot how to read"  
"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers!" Hopps was already behind Nick watching TV, "How could they let such a nightmarish lie to be seen by public? Especially after what Bellwether did – that was only half a year ago! I can’t believe it!"  
"Well, I’m afraid we have to listen to Domino’s advice and leave the city in the morning."  
"Are you mad?" Judy’s voice sounded angry now, "How can we leave Zootopia in the moment of such need?"  
"I think we’ll be much more useful for the city alive, carrots," Nick was already packing his small amount of stuff.  
"What are you doing, Nick? Have you forgotten, that we’re cops, all we need now is just to find Chief Bogo and tell him everything, he will protect us, ZPD must stop this!"  
"Oh you dumb bunny, don’t you understand, that Chief is a prey himself? Why would he be endangering his career and life to save some predators who are now less than ten percent of all Zootopia inhabitants? Erm, I don’t want to say he is in that plot or something," added Nick when he noticed the furious look Judy gave him, "Still if they are enough powerful to make their ghoulish ideas be shown on TV, they can also crush ZPD, and many others will suffer because of your stubbornness. Oh no, why are you crying?" Nick gave his partner a hug, "get your stuff, we have to leave now. Anyway, I believe we will return here soon, because that Domino looks like a person who has got lots of plans, including how to defeat that conspiracy." and they both continued packing.

***

Simultaneously near the Central Square, where ZPD and the City Hall were built near each other, some strange events have happened. The big black car stopped right in front of the entrance to City Hall and six figures in black coats and hats entered the building. Ten minutes later they left. Strange thing was that both of the cops who were assigned to guard the City Hall this night were absent now and no one saw the night guests. By the strange coincidence at exactly the same time the main security system went offline so that no records from security cameras were captured. Maybe less strange, taking recent events into consideration, was the fact that the mayor of Zootopia (now it was the leopard called Maggie Rodes) decided to spend this night in her office, trying to understand how it was possible that so strange and impertinent anti-predatory propaganda could get on the ZNN Channel, which was the official TV channel in Zootopia and everyone who paid at least a bit of attention to the city’s news watched it. That’s why, no doubt, almost everyone saw this outrageous “Breaking News”. Everything that was said from TV screens that evening inevitably led to the riots, because the most of predators would not be putting up the lies about them, and lots of prey animals would be protesting against living with predators after such a truth perversion. Submerged by such worries, the mayor had absolutely no idea how she would show up in front of all the animals in the morning, but she didn’t need to think of it. Because she never left her office when planned, and half an hour later, when the press started asking questions, the police had to force the door of her office just to find out she was dead for a long time already. The city split and now there was no one left to keep Zootopia from falling apart, which was a great chance to take control for someone who had planned it for a long time already.


	5. Chapter 5

Nick and Judy found out about what happened to mayor Rodes on their way to the point of departure. At exactly 7:30am, when they were going to turn off the main street of Sahara Square they suddenly noticed a mourning message on the biggest electronic advertising board of the street. In fact, the only thing the blood-red letters on the black background told them was that the mayor of Zootopia was found that morning in her office dead without any signs of the violent death, presumably because of the heart attack. But a bit later they heard from some animal group, which was discussing this tragical event, that police has found a small note, written presumably a week before her death, in which she asked Zootopia to choose Cornelius Wily, who was a nice-looking, but a bit unrestrained raccoon in his 30’s, as the new mayor. And everybody was going to satisfy her will, because Wily was the representative of the prey, and that was exactly what civilians (ninety percent of who were prey) wanted right now.

Hopps and Wilde haven’t warned Chief Bogo about the trip they planned, so he was in really bad mood at the same time they were getting in the trucks that were going to get them out of Zootopia. And their surprise when they saw of their colleagues in that trucks was equivalent to the anger of the Chief, who realized that the most of his predatory officers (Delgato, Fragmire, Wilde and some others, including Clawhauser, whose reception looked very empty and lonely without him) and even Hopps have disappeared without any trace and haven’t been answering their phones. In fact, they just had to ignore the endless calls not to endanger the escape plan, which went perfectly and exactly in time, because when the last truck left through the Minor Tunnel and was heading to the west, at exactly the same moment all the gates around the city suddenly closed so that nobody could leave or enter the city. The new age for Zootopia now has begun.

As all the escaped found out later, the city was locked down by the order of the new mayor, who was elected a bit earlier this morning (nobody probably have even counted the votes – so fast it all happened) and was now going to declaim the great speech and was gathering everyone near the City Hall. No predators came to that speech, not because they all left – more than eighty percent of them were still in the city, but because they didn’t want to support the mayor who gained power on the mass fear of predators, but Cornelius Wily had no need of them. All the Downtown was full of prey – everybody wanted to see and hear “The new Prey Defender”, what the countless banners all around Zootopia told. The city was so busy speculating about the new mayor and trying to guess what is he going to speak about, almost nobody paid attention to some very strange facts. For example, nobody noticed how all the information about trains from outside the city disappeared from the railway station scoreboard, or how all the ways out of the city, including tunnels and bridges, were blocked – all the security gates in the exterior wall and in the tunnels of Zootopia closed silently. 

At exactly 9:00am the new mayor showed himself on the big tribune, which was built right in front of the City Hall. Thousands and thousands eyes were watching this, and hundreds of cameras were broadcasting this event all over the Animalia. Even the predators who successfully escaped were able to watch the speech, because every truck had a small TV in it. Anyway, first thing both Judy and Nick noticed in that broadcast was the silver fox with the scar on his face, who stood right next to the tribune with new mayor along with some other animals.  
"That’s Domino!" said both Nick and Judy. As it happened, everybody in the moving trucks had recognized him, because he had contacted very each of them to try and help them escape (nobody could still understand clearly, why did he let them get away, if he was a member of that plot.  
  
A phrase said by Domino suddenly came to Judy’s head: “when they will find out what I did, they’ll kill me…”  
"I think we have to return there to save Domino. He is risking his life for us, they are going to kill him for what he did," whispered she to Nick.  
"What?! Have you gone bananas? That’s definitely what he didn’t want us to do – to return," protested Nick, "If he decided to sacrifice his life for us, that’s his right. Anyway, you don’t even know who he is, maybe he is sending us into the trap…"  
"I can’t believe he could set us all up, he is a predator himself"  
"And still he is with them," Nick obviously wanted to continue arguing, but Judy didn’t answer him, because right at that moment TV started showing everyone who stood behind the mayor awaiting the speech close-up, and now big grey eyes of the only predator in the big prey crowd gave them a sad look.


	6. Chapter 6

The time has come for the new mayor of Zootopia to begin his first speech. The great crowd under the tribune where he stood was noisy – everybody discussed the new mayor. Still there were no predators present at least at the main square, but there were too many prey and if some predator would have suddenly decided to visit the speech, he wouldn’t have been able to get close enough even to see Cornelius Wily, so they would have had only seen him on the big screens, where everything what happened near the City Hall was broadcasted.

Probably the only predator who could see the new mayor as he was getting ready for his speech was none other than the silver fox with the scar on his face, who stood near the tribune and looked absolutely indifferent and calm as the noise from the crowd was getting louder.

Suddenly all the murmuring was gone: a very pleasant velvety voice spread above the crowd. It seemed to be everywhere because of the countless number of speakers installed in the whole city. It was the new mayor of Zootopia, Cornelius Wily. His growth was a bit low, so he was standing on a special step to look higher than the other animals who stood with him on the tribune. Judging by his look and voice he could be rated as a very nice-looking raccoon – his black and white fur was always perfectly clean and coiffured, and his small round glasses which he always had on his nose made him look more intelligent. He stood up, coughed to check if the microphones were working and started: 

‘Ladies and gentlemammals! I’m really proud to be standing here in front of you today. I’m very proud of how much credit you have given to me, because I could never even dream about being the mayor of this beautiful city. I’d like to promise you one thing: today starts the new era for Zootopia and all of its citizens! But first of all I’d like to say something about my predecessor, Maggie Rodes, who unfortunately passed out earlier today. She was the only person in the whole City  
Hall who really believed in me, even so I was on the farthest job from mayor or any of the assistants. Anyway, she noticed me in the worst days of mine and helped me. Let’s just stay quiet for a moment to honor her memory.” he tragically folded his paws and waited a few seconds in the complete silence, “Right then, thank you. Now I think, as I am a new mayor, I should say something about terrible events of yesterday to clarify my position about that. The first thing I did, when I was called to lead Zootopia, was the request for all the information our honorable Police Department Chief Bogo could provide at the moment. The first thing I noticed in those materials was that by the testimony of the police officer, who was under attack, all the attackers were recognized as predators. I couldn’t believe this, because that was exactly what I and my closest friends were afraid of – predators can no longer restrain their primitive instincts, started attacking everyone, but now, unlike the Stone Age, they have much more technologies to kill and oppress! My theory about this says that the predators just wanted to gain more power, than they ever had, to have all the prey under their control so that they would march right into their large mouths full of teeth when preds only wished so. And for years of my work for the City Hall I saw lots of confirmations to my theory, those were successfully covered by the previous government. They just drown in so called “tolerance” and they couldn’t have resisted the pressure from the predators so government could do nothing to stop the predators! But I assure you: with me and my new bureaucracy the age of oppression of the prey by the predators will be over! My friends, you will no longer need to beware all those predators in the streets, I promise!” He had to stop for a while because of the loud cheers – everybody tried to show their respect to the new mayor, whose words promised a bit sharp, but so necessary from the prey’s point of view actions. At the moment it was difficult to tell if it wasn’t the ancient prey’s fear that awakened in Zootopia, not the predator$ aggression and craftiness, like the new mayor told.

Domino watched all this without any emotion showed on his grey face. From the place where he stood, the crowd on the square looked more like the ocean in the dangerous powerful storm. He seemed to be just waiting for something unavoidable, and he looked like he was absolutely ready to accept the fate.

Meanwhile, mayor Wily continued his speech: “I’m really glad that all of you here today agree with me. I will start taking actions immediately. With me you will be able to feel safe anywhere in Zootopia, because I am omnivorous, which means I know a lot about the predators being the prey at the same time. But first I’d like to introduce some of my new government member$ Here the raccoon started calling everyone who stood behind him one by one, speaking aloud the name and the post. Everyone, except for the silver fox Domino. It had the simple explanation: he was a predator, and emphasize public attention to the predator after the speech which exposed them as the true evil wasn’t the best idea for the new mayor. Anyway, even if Wily wished to introduce Domino, he couldn’t have done it because he left when the raccoon finished his speech. Now he entered the ZPD building and was heading for his office, which was now in the basement, but he hasn’t managed to reach the destination because he almost crashed into Chief Bogo on the stairs. Chief looked really worried and angry at the same time.

“Have you only heard what that impudent raccoon just said there?” thundered Chief’s furious voice right above fox’s head. “”Predators just want to gain more power than they ever had” – and how could only animals in the crowd down there just accept it? Especially after what happened half a year ago! And – the most outrageous – he just announced the impending change of the name of the city from Zootopia to Preytopia! Zootopia was always the most tolerant place, and now the predators are being just thrown away, losing their legitimate rights! I think this is…”  
“Why are you telling me all of that, sir?” Domino interrupted him softly.  
“Because you are a fox, a predator and you obviously should share my indignation!’  
“Well, if I was you, sir, I’d pay more attention to the details and for sure I wouldn’t say a word against the new mayor to the first person I’d meet.” Here the fox pointed at the badge with the big “P” letter on it and words Preytopia Government written in tiny letters above and below the letter. Chief Bogo looked like he was going to have heart attack for a moment, then he said in a very desponded voice: “what a traitor you are…”  
“Chief, this time I will pretend I didn’t hear anything of what you said to me, but take my friendly advice: think twice before saying something. The Wily’s “new age” will be a difficult time for those who will try to disagree with the official ideas. Have a nice day!” After he said this, Domino passed by the shocked Chief and entered his small office. The plate on the door told that it was the “Predator Crimes Investigation Department”. This office itself was a big gloomy room with lots of desks in it. Each desk had a small label with the name of the employee who was working there. By the way, despite of the new mayor’s policy of the predators oppression all the employees in the room were predators. Still, on the wall near the Cornelius Wily’s portrait was a slogan:  
“The only detective who can solve the crime committed by a predator is the detective who is the predator himself”  
– Cornelius Wily

This explained everything – the new mayor (or does the term “Dictator” fit better?) needed a force who would understand all the thoughts of the predators so that the new government could much easier control the city. Actually, this department existed for five years already, since Cornelius Wily, who was then nobody but the secretory of the Head of department for Public Relations of Zootopia City Hall (ex-mayor Maggie Rod$ post at the time), developed his crazy plan and started the conspiracy, but its office existed somewhere in the conspiracy HQ, and now it was moved down to the ZPD basement without even notifying Chief Bogo.

Domino walked by all the desks directly to the door with the sign “Head of the PCID of Preytopia John Smith”. Domino opened the door with his key and took his place behind the only desk there. Obviously, he was the head of this department and even more obviously, he didn’t want anybody to know his real name – both “Domino” and “John Smith” more likely were his aliases. At exactly the moment when he opened the first case file, somebody knocked his door and then the tired-looking wolf came in. He came close to the Domino and whispered right to his ear:  
‘All the trucks left the city successfully this morning without being noticed.”  
‘Well done,” answered him his superior, “Do the others know this?’  
‘Yeah, they do. A couple of my agents were following the trucks till the tunnel to make sure nobody noticed them.”  
‘Ok, that are the only good news today,” Domino looked worried now, “I think you guys should start making your ways out of Preytopia as soon as possible’  
‘Why’s that?’  
‘Isn’t it obvious? Right after they will cope the predators in the city, the will get rid of us. Why would they need predators anymore? They will only see us as a threat. That’s why I want you and your team to get away now, Wolfrick – you did the great service saving all that predators, you do not deserve to be killed dishonorably. I will make sure they won’t notice your absence for as long as you’ll need to get to the safe place’  
‘But what about you? It was actually you who saved all those animals. You jeopardized your life every day, meeting all of them personally! We cannot let you stay here, they will kill you!’  
‘I’m okay with that, my friend.” Domino’s voice sounded calm and confident.  
‘No, sir, that’s not happening – we are not leaving,” the wolf seemed to be very loyal and wasn’t going to change his mind.  
‘Well then, I can’t make you go if you wish to die for nothing. Any news about the new mayor?” Domino changed the stream of the dialogue with his subordinate.  
‘As his press-secretary stated, he locked himself in his new office with his assistants and is now getting his reforms ready for the execution.

Suddenly the phone on the Domino’s table rang. It was nobody else but Cornelius Wily himself, who telephoned all of his department heads personally to tell them he had sent their personal instructions to them with the carrier and to order to start executing those instructions immediately. The carrier appeared five minutes later with the huge package of papers and disappeared when the head of PCID opened it. Because Wolfrick Holdstein was PCID head’s assistant, he was let by Domino to see those instructions too and to discuss them.

The instruction itself was a very long file with lots of paragraphs and subparagraphs, which were so detailed that even a six-year old would understand what to do. It was pretty obvious that it was prepared a long time ago. But the first and the most important thing in that package was an order from the mayor of Preytopia, which gave the Department all the permissions they could possibly need in the future and obligated all the Preytopia officials and citizens to assist the Department’s investigation in any possible way under threat of immediate arrest for obstructing the investigation with 5 years jail time for restraint.

The very first paragraph prescribed to get access to the databases of the ZPD (now it was called PPD, Preytopia Police Dept.) to get all the available information about the predators who were in the city now. It also meant that the PCID should have taken the whole PPD under its control. Domino decided to do it himself, as he was the head of his department and had to prevent the probable complications with Chief Bogo. He walked upstairs leisurely thinking about how to start talking to the Chief, who he had already seen this morning and who obviously wasn’t under the good impression of the fox from his basement.

Still, when Domino knocked the door of the Bogo’s office, Chief looked nice, or at least was trying to look so. On demand to provide the access to the database Chief’s eyes started getting really red so the fox had to show him his badge which claimed he was the head of the PCID and obligated everyone including the officials one of who Chief Bogo was to assist. 

A few minutes later Domino left the Chief’s office with all the information he needed to access the database and heard standing near the door how Bogo growled silently something about the “sly foxes”, “bloody traitors” and what in his opinion the citizens should do to such bastards. Anyway, he got what he needed and was ready to start the second phase of Cornelius Wily’s instruction and his eyes showed now how really worried he was about what was happening around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My illustrations to this chapter:  
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ipLTx1ES3TTHFTQWxHZ3J6QXM (beginning)  
> https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ipLTx1ES3TeDJKVkZhbnlqS1E (end)


End file.
